The national budget for fiscal year 2019-20 (FY20) is likely to be placed in parliament in the second week of June this year. It will be the 48th national budget of the county and first budget of the incumbent finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal. There is an indication that the total outlay of FY20 budget will cross Tk 5.0 trillion.
The size of a budget actually depends on the expansion of economy. Considering around 7.0 per cent average growth of Gross Domestic Products (GDP) annually for the last couple of years and average 6.0 per cent annual inflation, annual monetisation growth in the country is not below 13 per cent. Thus, the annual increase of budget size by around 13 per cent may not be very unusual. As the original outlay of FY19 budget is Tk 4.64 trillion, it may be increased to Tk 5.24 trillion in FY20.
Besides regular exercise of the budget making process, a number of changes have already taken place on budget presentation over the years. Gone are the days, when journalists and analysts had to wait for the printed copy of the budget documents in national parliament. There was even a practice of late handing-over of the copy of the second part of the finance minister's budget speech which contained revenue measures. Written budget speech and other documents are available online once the finance minister starts delivering his speech in parliament. Budget highlights and graphics are presented with power point in the session.
In line with the gradual improvement of budget dissemination process in a transparent manner, the timing of budget announcement needs to be shifted from afternoon to morning. Though the current practice of presenting the budget in parliament on Thursday afternoon is a long tradition, it is not a legally-biding requirement. Moreover, there are some limitations of the afternoon disclosure of the budget especially for the print media.
After receiving the budget documents in hand, journalists working for the print media get only a few hours to go through those and prepare their news items. Constrained by the printing deadline, newspapers can't provide adequate in-depth coverage of the budget. Though they have been working in this way for many years, it is stressful and widens scope of errors or misreporting. Newspapers actually need adequate time to decode the budget and present it in a simple langue to readers. Some additional time will give the media people to understand the salient features of the budget accurately. Experts and economists will also be able to give their objective opinions depending on more detailed information.
Until 2000, the Indian budget was announced at 5.0 pm on the last working day of the month of February. This practice was inherited from the British colonial era and finally discontinued in 2001 by the then finance minister Yashwant Sinha. He changed the long tradition by presenting the Union Budget at 11 am.
Bangladesh can also do the same. In fact, last year, the budget was placed in parliament at 1.30pm due to holy Ramadan. It showed that change is possible for greater transparency of the national budget.
